Thank you. Page 6-17, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $6.089 million.

Page 6-20 and 21, information item, directorate, active positions. Any questions?

Activity summary, program delivery support, operations expenditure summary, $26.822 million.

Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Could the Minister advise, under this area here we see a definition or description of the activity as responsible, population health division responsible for health promotion protection disease registries. What kind of initiatives or new initiatives can we expect, Madam Chair, in the coming fiscal year in the area of health promotion? Something that I believe we have not addressed as aggressively as we should is the awareness and the promotion of good health practice, so that we don't have to come up with all the money for these expensive medevacs, and hospital beds, and treatment centres. So the area of promotion and prevention is one that's of great interest to me, Madam Chair. Could the Minister give us some outline of what we can expect in this coming business year, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we recognize the need for prevention, as the Member has indicated, on a broader government-wide scale. Through the social envelope Ministers, we've worked collaboratively on the Get Active! campaign to support that. We're working on the healthy choices framework. ECE is working with their boards to look at healthy foods in their facilities, as is Health and Social Services. We've invested, and continue to invest, a lot of money in terms of the alcohol and drug where it's not just dealing with the problems, but we're encouraging people to either drink responsibly or not drink at all. We've invested, quite successfully, money in the Butthead campaign and we're going to repeat that through the second campaign. To name a few, some of the initiatives that we have under way. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The tobacco reduction and the Butthead campaigns have earned accolades, and deservedly so. An area that, Madam Chair, I believe we've chronically undershot here is an area where we should be doing much more prevention promotion is alcohol use. Something that, regrettably, our government has not undertaken in a very serious way at all is a focussed campaign on alcohol abuse and its consequences. So I'm wondering where we are, Madam Chair, in addressing this enormously expensive and damaging social consequence, or social aspect, of our behaviour up here. Can we or when are we going to begin to look at alcohol in the same way, Madam Chair, as the department has so successfully looked at tobacco as something that we can do something and make a difference, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we started out about three years ago on a direction with alcohol and drugs and the Mental Health Strategy that saw us invest millions of dollars and dozens of positions at the community level to work with the issue of alcohol and drug, mental health and addictions, which are related issues and tie into a lot of the other work that's going on. We've added money into public health to put in public health units in the communities that don't have them. One of their jobs will be to work on the ground with pregnant mothers and families and children, along with the social workers and the mental health and wellness workers that are there to deal with some of these very basic issues. The rewrite of the Liquor Act, I believe, is going to be an asset. We're one of the few jurisdictions that actually label our bottles. The work we're doing with FASD is well through the part of the Canada Northwest Partnership and FASD is geared not only to treatment, but to prevention. We're working with Manitoba, Saskatchewan, B.C., the Yukon territory, and Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, as well as the federal government, on how we can do that more effectively, as well. I recognize we have yet to be as successful as we'd like and we're always looking at ways to do things better, but we are making what I think are some reasonable efforts in this very important area, as the Member has identified. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Braden.

Madam Chair, the Minister mentioned the review of the Liquor Act, which is underway right now. I'm pleased he did so. I was one of the advocates of getting the act overhauled and one of my principle concerns, Madam Chair, was, as I stated in my previous question, that I just did not see our government seriously undertaking a responsibility, or a mandate, to do something about the way we abuse alcohol. It was through, hopefully, a review of the act. As I understand, it's ongoing now and we don't need to get into a discussion of that specifically, but I guess through this process, Madam Chair, is the Department of Health and Social Services looking at this in such a way that it could perhaps undertake that mandate, as it has with tobacco, so successfully with tobacco, and shoulder the challenge, the responsibility, of trying to do the same thing with alcohol? I'm talking about trying to fundamentally change the way society considers alcohol and the way we use it. One of the principle successes, I think, with the tobacco campaign is that we set out to de-normalize its use. We wanted to make it un-cool, uncomfortable, inconvenient, to use tobacco in any form, anywhere. A lot of success has been done with that. Can we look at alcohol in the same way and can we take on a commitment as big and as challenging as what we've done with tobacco? Can we do the same thing with alcohol and can this department, you know, is it planning? This is my question, Madam Chair: Is this department planning on taking an active role, a lead role, in the liquor review and seeing where it can assert its mandate? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, Dr. Corriveau, the chief medical

officer for the Northwest Territories, is on the board of the steering committee for the review, so he's going to be playing a key role there. But I just point, once again, to all the work that we've done as a department and as a government through Health and Social Services to play what I think is a leadership role with a significant work that's been done and the alcohol and Mental Health and Addictions Strategy that we built off of Dr. Chalmers report, the State of Emergency. In fact, we just got the Chalmers report back from the printers and that will be going to the Members today or tomorrow and you'll have an opportunity to look at that. It gives us a clear indication that the direction that we have charted off on is one that we should continue to follow, but we have to make some adjustments which we're going to look at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's good on this discussion. I would like to add, though, that I didn't know that Dr. Corriveau was on the Liquor Act review group and I'm very pleased to hear that. That's good stuff. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya. General comments.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of his support for training, upgrading of the home care services in the smaller communities. I believe that the Minister mentioned sometime that studies have indicated, from my region at least, that the elders, the people wanted more home care workers going into their communities. Right now, it seems like we have one home care worker for possibly over 20 clients. That I'm hearing back, just from the last weekend, is that these home care workers are so in demand that they only spend approximately maybe half-an-hour per client, and they don't do justice to home care service. So I want to ask the Minister in terms of having support for these elders in their home care services in regions where they desperately need them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Miltenberger.